SvobodaToday

VISUAL REPORTS

An overwhelming majority of respondents to an informal street poll in Kyiv said they were dissatisfied with the country’s progress under President Petro Poroshenko. Many said things have changed for the worse; one person said “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” Respondents cited the country’s development on a Western path and the new visa-free regime with the EU as positive changes. (Ukrainian Service)

European Council President Donald Tusk said he was "not sure" he and U.S. President Donald Trump had "a common position" on Russia, although they share a position on the conflict in Ukraine. Tusk was speaking after meeting with Trump in Brussels.

OTHER NEWS

Human Rights Watch says it has confirmed that police in Russia's Chechnya region rounded up, tortured, and humiliated dozens of gay or bisexual men during the spring of 2017 in "an apparent effort to purge them from Chechen society."

The Russian state-owned bank Vneshekonombank reports that real incomes of Russians are at a record low, on par with 2009. Consumers have blunted the immediate effects of reduced income through increased borrowing. (Russian Service)

Russian Minister of Science and Education Olga Vasilieva has commented to local media on a survey showing that over two-thirds of Russian students can’t define corruption, saying that the young protesters are a “romantic part of the public” who are “for everything good and against all bad,” and adding that “children should be outside of politics.“ The ministry conducted the survey after a surprising number of youth turned out for anticorruption protests in March. (Russian Service)

A new IMF report cites the need for legislation to institute proposed reforms and meet objectives, and predicts that Ukraine’s GDP will grow by more than 2 percent in 2017, and inflation will remain under 10 percent. (Ukrainian Service)

Ukrainians have taken to the Internet to criticize U.S. artist Jeff Koons over his sculpture of a sitting ballerina recently installed in New York, saying it appears remarkably similar to a work by a Ukrainian artist.

The March parliamentary elections in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia have not assuaged the profound mistrust and antagonism between the various opposition forces and the leadership of the de facto president, Raul Khajimba.